NHT’s $6 billion land bank
Published:Sunday | February 4, 2024 | 12:17 AMAvia Collinder - Business Writer
Government’s housing solutions provider, the National Housing Trust (NHT), indicated this week in its audited financials for the April 2022 to March 2023 fiscal year that land held for housing development is valued at $6.52 billion.
The NHT is the primary provider of housing in Jamaica and acquires land for construction and to resell to Jamaicans seeking homes.
The value of property reported as owned by the Trust has grown year over year. Lands valued at $6.42 billion were held in the prior year.
Total assets grew by 6.0 per cent or $19.9 billion when compared to 2021/2022, ending the year at $348.2 billion.
Meanwhile, in the report it was noted that housing under construction during the year was valued at $30.8 billion, this compared to $28.7 billion in the year before.
In 2023, there was a slowdown in the number of housing developments by the Trust, which has a target of delivering over 40,000 homes in the medium term.
The reduction of construction activity was noted by the Planning Institute of Jamaica in mid-2023 to be 61 per cent below the similar period.
Its report indicates that this lull was due to a transfer of construction to its private developers’ programme.
Management noted in the report, “As the NHT redirected its housing programme towards greater collaboration with the private sector through the developers programme and Guaranteed Purchase Programme (GPP), seven projects totalling 4,437 solutions were shifted from the NHT Scheme Programme to the developers programme.”
It was outlined that due to the process of review and selection of proposals under the programme, the start of these projects were deferred to the 2023/2024 financial year.
Still, expenditure for units constructed under the GPP increased in value to $110.5 million, up by 164.4 per cent or $68.7 million over the previous year.
Altogether, 1,758 housing solutions were started in 2022/2023, which amounted to nine per cent or 150 solutions more than 2021-2022.
A total of 1,546 housing solutions were completed in 2022/2023, which was 42 per cent or 1,121 solutions fewer than the completions in the previous year. Under the GPP, 206 solutions were completed.
The NHT said that in the fiscal year ended it spent $45.9 billion on its various housing initiatives for the financial year. This represents a marginal decline of 1.2 per cent or $566.3 million comparative to 2021-2022.
Loans to contributors (NHT mortgages and Joint Finance Mortgage Programme) accounted for 76 per cent of expenditure. A total of $34.8 billion was spent on loans this year, a slight increase from $34.5 billion.
The Trust indicates that the growth in total assets was fuelled mainly by an 8.1 per cent ($20.7 billion) growth in the loans receivable portfolio. For the year under review, loans receivable totalled $277.4 billion, up from $256.7 billion.
Loans to beneficiaries increased by nine per cent moving from $240.5 billion to $261.9 billion.
Management said that inventories increased by approximately $2.6 billion to $40.6 billion at the end of March 2023, up 6.9 per cent when compared to the previous year.
Cash and Investments declined by $585.5 million or 4.3 per cent to $12.8 billion when compared to 2021/2022.
The company said that a reduction in mobilisation sums for the housing construction and the faster settlement of death claims were the main contributing factors accounting for a decrease in receivables and prepayments.
The NHT ended the year with operating surplus for the year 0f $19.0 billion reduced by 7.7 per cent compared to the previous year.
The reduction was due mainly to a decrease in interest income of $0.8 billion, an increase in miscellaneous income of $1.8 billion, and an increase in the discount of the disposal of receivables of $1.0 billion.
Operating expenses increased by $2.2 billion over the prior year.
Management indicated that legislation has been passed successively for the transfer of $11 billion in funds to the government’s consolidated fund and this annual expense continues.